Questing Kadara

Old Skinner

Start this quest by talking to Christmas Tate, the mayor of the Kadara settlement. Obviously this requires you to finish the quest "Settling Kadara" and the numerous quests that requires. Even though the settlement on Kadara is barely established, it seems some machine-worshiping loons have started lurking about. While they might not be much of a threat, the object of their worship - some machine named "Old Skinner" might be. On behalf of Christmas Tate and the newly-founded Kadara settlement, then, you’ll be tasked with investigating this machine and making sure it - and the cult loons who worship it - don’t cause any trouble.

Your goal is the navpoint pointing to Kurinth’s Valley, in the northwestern corner of the map. Drive the Nomad up the linear mountain trail, past the poisoned Angaran settlement, and when the navpoint turns into a search area dismount and investigate west of the road to find Bishop’s Datapad, and his corpse. Dumbass.

Turn north and, sure enough, you’ll spot Kadara’s Architect - Old Skinner itself - floating majestically in the air. Make your way north around (or through) the lake to confront the giant robot, which will oblige you by landing, and in the process lowering some Remnant platforms, which now serve as a fine bit of cover. If you’ve fought the Architect on Eos or Voeld, you know how this fight will play out - it has three attacks, a highly damaging rapid-fire laser, a volley of sticky mines, and a massive, charged-up laser burst that’ll leave lingering electricity on the ground for a few seconds. It’ll use these attacks in rotation, with the latter two (the mines and the charged laser) forcing you to abandon cover, and the former (the rapid fire laser torrent) obliging you to seek out cover.

Your targets are its conduits, three leg conduits and one head conduit. After sustaining enough damage on its leg conduits or head conduit it’ll lower its defensive shielding around one set and leave the other vulnerable, so at any given time you’ll need to be targeting the head, or the legs. It’ll also randomly shield all its conduits and summon a host of lesser Remnant - in this fight expect several Nullifiers and the odd Breacher to pop up when this occurs.

After destroying a leg conduit the Architect will flee to a new position, and the first two locations aren’t terribly different. There are lowered Remnant platforms for you to hide behind, no environmental hazards to deal with, and really nothing (aside from the Architect’s attacks, which are easily memorized) to shake you from cover. Just respond to its attacks accordingly, mop up the Remnant it summons periodically, and keep popping away at its conduits. The third location is a bit of a change, however, as it’ll take to high ground, forcing you to leap up a series of Remnant platforms to reach it. You can hide behind the highest of these platforms when necessary, but this greatly limits your mobility, so make your way north, northeast off the platforms and onto the nearby ground, where you’ll find a few Remnant barriers you can hide behind, instead.

When you finally take out all four of the Architect’s conduits, make your way over to the fallen Architect’s head, hack it into submission and loot the container it leaves behind. Defeating the massive machine is worth 400 AVP, +10% Kadara viability and 530 XP, and the prizes in the chest include another Remnant Data Core and the Fusion Mod of Battering I .